Below are screenshots of are all the articles I found on this morning’s New York Times site It’s clear that the paper has unapologetically gone all out for Kamala Harris (what do you expect?), but has done so in both the news and the op-eds. There is only one dissenter: the ever-heterodox and thoughtful Pamela Paul (see below). The paper is also making a virtue of necessity in heaping encomiums on Tim Walz, an okay VP candidate but not as good, in my view, as Shapiro.
Like Paul in the article below, I’m tired of people urging others to vote for Kamala Harris because she’d be the first black/Asian/woman President. In fact, my favorite candidate was a woman—Gretchen Whitmer—but that was because of merit, not gender or ethnicity. As for Harris, if I do vote for President it would be for her (my vote doesn’t matter in Democratic Illinois), but I have to say—and you already know this—that I’m not a big fan of Harris. I don’t think Paul is, either, at least in the article below (click to read, or find it archived here):
Some excerpts:
But I don’t particularly care that the Democratic candidate is a woman. I care about having the best, most electable Democratic candidate possible, and I suspect many Americans, male and female, feel the same. As my colleague Jeremy Peters reported last week, voters are looking for electability, not representation. “In interviews, Harris supporters of all races said they were concerned that if she talked more directly about her race, she risked feeding the backlash that has been building over diversity,” he wrote.
The year 2020, in other words, is as over as 2016.
If President Biden had pulled out of the race months ago, other candidates, male and female, could have made a case for their qualifications and electability and maybe had a better shot at the presidency. As groovy as the vibe feels right now, all the memes and Zooms in the world can’t cover for Harris’s weaknesses or less than overwhelming vice-presidential record. Nor will promoting her as possibly the first woman president do anything substantive to help her win.
The last paragraph expresses my view, and I’m sure that if Biden had pulled out, say, six months ago, and if there had been an open Democratic forum and a series of debates, Harris wouldn’t be the candidate—except for her inheriting Biden’s campaign funds. But I’d rather have a candidate run on merit than on funds, sex, or ethnicity.
. . . Donald Trump may be the latest in a long line of male presidential candidates, but I don’t oppose him because he’s a man; I oppose him because he is a terrible candidate, a catastrophic leader and a terrible human being, one who treats women (and men) horribly.
Similarly, women didn’t necessarily vote for Hillary Clinton because of her sex. And despite efforts to make gender central to her campaign, women didn’t turn out for her in the same force as pollsters predicted. “I’m Not With Her: Why Women Are Wary of Hillary Clinton” ran a headline in The Guardian months ahead of the election.
. . . I hope Harris is elected and succeeds mightily not as an emblem or a representative and not based on essentialist or identitarian terms but simply on the merits — and that’s on her to prove. Whether she wins or loses, fails or excels, she should be judged based on what she does, not on which box she checks.
So please, stop all the talk of breaking barriers and glass ceilings, of which group is somehow categorically represented by a single human being and which isn’t and instead talk about the candidates’ qualities. A good president represents all Americans, regardless of his or her own identity.
To those who insist on focusing on sex this election, home in instead on Trump’s contempt for members of the opposite sex. That alone — leaving aside his atrocious record and stance on nearly every policy issue — should be reason for his defeat.
It looks to me that Paul wants Harris elected simply because she’s not as insane as Trump, but note that Paul says nothing about Harris’s own merits. What did Harris mean when she said she wanted to earn the nomination rather than inherit it? How has she earned it? By turning down Shapiro, for one thing, because, as a Jew, he wouldn’t appeal to progressives?
Here from the Times of Israel are some of Harris’s antics as she campaigns in Michigan, a state not exactly favorable to Israel:
Democratic US presidential candidate President Kamala Harris told a group chanting about the “genocide” in Gaza at her election rally in Michigan Wednesday to quiet down unless they “want Donald Trump to win.”
Before the Detroit rally, she met briefly with the founders of the Uncommitted National Movement, which led a mass vote protesting US President Joe Biden’s support for the war in Gaza during the swing state’s February primary.
. . . Ahead of the Detroit rally on Tuesday, Harris met with Abbas Alawieh and Layla Elabed, the Uncommitted National Movement’s co-founders. According to The New York Times, Harris indicated she was willing to meet with the two over their demand for an arms embargo on Israel, and introduced them to her staff.
. . .In a subsequent statement, her campaign gave no indication of this, however. “Since October 7, the vice president has prioritized engaging with Arab, Muslim, and Palestinian community members and others regarding the war in Gaza,” the statement said. “In this brief engagement, she reaffirmed that her campaign will continue to engage with those communities. The vice president has been clear: she will always work to ensure Israel is able to defend itself against Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups. The Vice President is focused on securing the ceasefire and hostage deal currently on the table.”
According to the Times, Alawieh and Elabed had been invited to stand in a photo line welcoming Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Alawieh was quoted in the report as saying he “felt an openness from [Vice President] Harris, as well as a listening ear from Governor Walz.”
“I appreciate her leadership, and I know the uncommitted voters want to support her, uncommitted delegates want to support her,” Alawieh said, “but our voters need to see her turn a new page on Gaza policy.”
Oh, she will, she will, though not perhaps before she’s elected. But her calls for a cease fire are equivalent to calls for a Hamas victory.
And from Batya Ungar-Sargon at the Free Press, in an article called, “America is ready for a Jewish Veep. The Democrats aren’t.”
On Monday night, Vice President Kamala Harris had narrowed her search for a running mate to two men: Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro and Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Each had pros and cons.
In Walz’s favor, he had the distinction of applying the term weird to J.D. Vance, a word that the entirety of his party’s elites then picked up and ran with. Against Walz was the fact that Minnesota is not a swing state and Walz himself is a progressive, like Harris, making it unclear what he would add to the ticket.
In Shapiro’s favor was a 61 percent approval rating in a must-win state for Harris and a history of working across the political divide and choosing moderate, popular positions on everything from school choice to Covid-19 restrictions to degree requirements to corporate taxes. But working against him turned out to be something insurmountable: Josh Shapiro is a proud Jew.
Almost as soon as Harris began her search for a running mate in earnest, a campaign from the progressive left made it clear that the anti-Israel wing of the party would not vote for Shapiro. Though his support of Israel is identical to that of every other contender, though he hates Benjamin Netanyahu a lot, though his view on college campus protesters (he called it “absolutely unacceptable” that “universities can’t guarantee the safety and security of their students”) is the most common, most popular view, none of this was a match for his last name, the fact that he is an observant, kosher-keeping proud Jew, and that, like the vast majority of Jews, he supports the state of Israel.
. . . There can be no doubt about it: there was only one reason to reject Shapiro, and it was that the Democrats would rather cater to their antisemitic base and lose the election than embrace the vast non-antisemitic American middle and win. “You also have antisemitism that has gotten marbled into this party,” Van Jones said on CNN Tuesday. “You can be for the Palestinians without being an anti-Jewish bigot, but there are some anti-Jewish bigots out there.”
There’s an argument to be made—and Free Press reporter Peter Savodnik has made it smartly—that the goal in picking a vice president should be to do no harm. And, like it or not, in the current version of the Democratic Party, Shapiro harms the ticket. But consider what this means: the most qualified person to help a major party nominee win the presidency was passed over because he’s a proud Jew with a strong connection to his heritage.
And a satirical article from the Babylon Bee that still rings true (click to read):
An excerpt, somewhat but not completely satirical:
After hearing Josh Shapiro might be Kamala Harris’s pick for Vice President, Democrats worry his name on the ticket might cost them the all-important “Death To America” vote.
“I think Josh is very qualified to be Harris’s VP pick,” Chuck Schumer told the press over the weekend. “I do worry he might discourage those wishing to obliterate the U.S. and wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. We really need those votes.”
The Harris team announced it is nearing a decision on who will join the current Vice President on the national ticket. Governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro is rumored to be at the top of the list, but some worry his Jewish heritage and past as an IDF soldier might cost the dems votes from those wishing to make the streets run red with the blood of Jews if it’s the last thing they ever do.
“We really need those 15,000 votes from Dearborn, Michigan who want America to be eternally consumed by the fires of holy jihad,” Schumer said. “We’d hate to lose out on their support just because we have a guy on the ticket who probably thinks Jews should exist. It’s a real conundrum.”
I’m not a one-issue voter, but I do care whether Harris supports Israel or not. If she calls for a ceasefire, cuts off or severely reduces aid to Israel, or bawls for a two-state solution, she wants Hamas to win so that she can win. But this surely bears on her moral compass, and if it points to Hamas, it’s 180º off.
Further, I’m not keen on her views on gender or Titles VI and IX, nor on her abysmal failure to do anything about the border. She alienates a huge proportion of people who have worked for her, and that doesn’t bode well, either. In my view, she has earned the nomination in only one way, by inheriting Biden’s war chest. And, as with Pamela Paul, I don’t think anybody should be ruled out as President because of their sex or ethnicity. But neither is that a reason to vote for them.
Related.
Historic lawsuit against Planned Parenthood underway. PP doled out cross sex hormones (in this case testosterone) after a 20-30 minutes consult with a nurse practitioner – irrevocably altering the life of a young girl (Christina). Subsequent to which a plastic surgeon (also after brief consult) removed her breasts.
Both Harris and Walz are gender affirming politicians. At some point in the future, the (medical/psychological/bodily) harm caused to children/young adults and the accompanying denial of reality (by the party of science and the “do no harm” professionals/elites) will be *the* greatest medical scandal underwritten and buttressed by the democrats. I hope that day comes soon, for the sake of our children; being “on the right side of history” will take on a brand new meaning.
Quote:
“Cristina Hineman grew up in a happy, healthy, loving home. Though she knew by the age of 12 that she was attracted to other girls and experienced some confusion over this, she never experienced any discomfort with her female sex. But after enrolling in public school her freshman year and making friends with a social group, all of whom embraced “gender identities” different from their biological sex, Hineman’s life took a dramatic turn.
Within a few short years, she began identifying as “non-binary” and later as a “trans man,” took drugs to alter her physical appearance, and underwent irreversible surgery to remove her breasts. While some report it taking years to experience any feelings of regret, Hineman realized it was all a mistake just weeks after undergoing a double mastectomy.
Now detransitioned, Hineman faces many ongoing health challenges and has filed a historic lawsuit against Planned Parenthood and her other providers in an attempt to save others from a lifetime of medical complications and trauma. ”
+2
A terrible, sad and common story, that girl Christina.
The trans cult is out of the jurisdiction of politicians now though. It is in the hands of tort lawyers who are the only ones who can roll back today’s lobotomy mixed with Satanic Panic, FGM and other horrors where society has gone astray.
Bring on the lawyers!
D.A., lawyer
NYC
+1
Yes, heartbreaking. Also maddening and infuriating.
I think it’s equal parts (or maybe unequal parts) litigation and politicians/politics. The Biden/Harris move to conflate sex and gender via Title IX -for example- adds to the confusion faced by children and young adults.
Re: lawyers, there are a growing number of firms suing on behalf of detransitioners like Christina. So yes, you are on target there.
This is a good watch: huge gratitude for this firm and similar others.
** Dawn of the Detransitioner Lawsuits, with Josh Payne | EP 167 **
This firm was set up specifically for supporting detransitioners, including Christina’s case.
Upholding Justice For Detransitioners
=======================
https://www.cmppllc.com/our-firm/
Kamala Harris is an empty-headed disaster of a candidate. She does not belong in this role. She could not get there on her own merits. Her giddy cheerleading at the rallies is cringe worthy. Her policies — to the extent that I can decipher them — exemplify all the reasons I bolted the Democratic party. I will not vote for her.
+1
With you.
“Her policies — to the extent that I can decipher them — exemplify all the reasons I bolted the Democratic party.”
Her policies mirror those of the Democratic Party, virtually all of which are supported by majorities of Americans. If your preference is the most vile, lying, dishonest, fraudulent, mentally ill felon in the history of the U.S. presidency, I’m not sure that any Harris policy would satisfy you.
+1
I am not a fan of Harris, but the Republicans have given me no choice but to vote for her. I absolutely will not vote for, or withhold my vote to indirectly aid, that dangerous, unhinged narcissist and the nasty faux “hillbilly” running with him.
No, Barbara, my decision to not vote for Kamala does not mean I’m in support of a “vile, lying, fraudulent, mentally ill, felon.”. You read what I wrote correctly, though, and are correct, Harris’s policies will not satisfy me. I couldn’t have stated it any clearer than I did in my first post. Final answer.
Actually though, a vile, lying, etc. etc. whatever is a perfectly serviceable candidate if he has a credible chance to stymie the Left for four years. This is why the Left has been fighting him since 2015, not because he’s a bad man — for all I know he probably is — but because he stands in their way. All he has to do is veto progressive legislation that comes out of Congress and he’ll have done his job. His character faults are irrelevant to Left-stymiers.
From reading these pages it seems that most readers, and perhaps most Americans as Barbara says, broadly favour Leftist policy positions and need a strong reason to vote against a Leftist candidate, plus the bloc votes that can be taken for granted. (This is certainly true in Canada.). Neither Trump nor Harris herself yet provides that reason for half those polled. For those determined to overlook VP Harris’s faults in order to vote Left with a clear conscience, Mr. Trump provides all the excuse they’ll need. And of course those all in with progressive Leftism will need no excuses at all.
In the U.S., at least, governance has often been a matter of competing policy positions, and as such Americans have been willing to tolerate presidents from the opposite side of the aisle. Trump’s threats, however, are not merely to counter liberal/progressive policies, but are a more wholesale imposition of dangerous incompetence on governance, based on little understanding of the workings of government, foreign affairs, economic policy, etc.
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-complete-listing-atrocities-1-1-056
And that is precisely why I will not be voting for her. This does not mean, I will be voting for Trump.
Today’s democratic party
===============
** The border – the millions streaming across affect the middle class, affect wages, affect housing, affect social cohesion.
** Israel – Harris has implicitly/explicitly supported an arms embargo on Israel.
** Gender ideology – children being mutilate based on a protocol buttressed by fiction (not evidence based).
** runaway DEI (lest we forget Claudine Gay)
** No off ramp re: the Ukraine War (is this another endless war which we’ll get out of in the same horrific way we exited Afghanistan?)
— the majority of Americans DO NOT support the above. ~70% of Americans want males out of female sports. A majority want the border protected, a majority want Israel to win against Hamas and a majority (including blacks) do not support DEI (vs Merit). In California, (likely the most “progressive” state in the union) affirmative action has been voted down repeatedly via propositions.
The claim that a majority of Americans support democrat policies is not supported by evidence. The democratic party of 15 years ago is NOT today’s democratic party, today’s democratic party has been captured by the lunatic/radical left and has ditched the middle class, science, reality and moderation. It’s the party of *vibes* (feelings and virtue), not substance.
There are a some good reasons to vote DEM (and these are legitimate reasons – but they are increasingly few). The environment/healthcare fit the category.
Trump is suboptimal, but hatred of Trump (and that hatred is visceral and manifests via TDS) is nowhere near good enough to vote for a party that supports mutilating children without evidence. This cannot be justified – there is no justification for it.
In the women’s boxing final (at the Olympics), two males face each other. Yes. Really.
Is this the world we want to live in? A fictional, virtue signaling, dystopian reality? This is the world of Harris and the current democrat party.
“In the women’s boxing final (at the Olympics), two males face each other. Yes. Really. ”
The two boxers you’re referring to are competing in different weight categories. Yes. Really.
@Weishan yes you’re correct and Rosemary is wrong. But if she was correct at least there would be only one male winning a gold medal in women’s boxing. Under the true scenario there will probably be two, one at featherweight (57 kg, Ting) and one at welterweight (66 kg, Khelif). That seems worse.
Thanks for the correction. I’ll check. I can’t edit my comment – the blog won’t let me. Despite, i appreciate the correction.
You do realize ( if you are correct ) that makes it even worse?
On top of the other females these two have elimated from the final rounds; there’s the potential that two more females will be robbed of medals? ( specifically golds)
WTF ( not at you, but at the madness of it all ).
Frankly, I feel genuine pity for these two – the problem is not them (living with DSDs must be very hard). The problem is the international Olympic Committee and politicians like Harris and Walz who are clueless and more interested in contrived virtue and a fuctious utopia than reality and science.
I don’t like her either (but I’m not an American).
I’m afraid she’s too far left.
+1
Sounds exactly like the US President we will need to lead the free world in a major war.
Ha. +1.
I completely agree! Thanks for courageously saying so. Telling the truth about how horrible her politics have been doesn’t mean we all want Trump. Trump is awful too, just in different ways. I’d rather Josh Shapiro be at the top of the Democratic ticket (and Harris nowhere to be seen).
Regarding Harris’s indication that she would be willing to meet with people proposing an arms embargo on Israel, I want to believe that she was caught off-guard and retreated to her natural inclination to tell people that she hears them. Listening is an admirable default position (IMO), but taking that position can also get one into trouble.
I may be wrong. Harris may indeed be sympathetic to anti-Israel activists and may even be anti-Israel herself—or anti- current Israeli leadership—but I’m not sure. I will be watching carefully and listening for better responses to these kinds of questions. She should get better at deflecting or, better yet, criticizing anti-Israel statements and questions—*unless* she really is anti-Israel. I’m looking for clarity before casing a vote for Harris.
I would never vote for a candidate so that he/she/it can be the first (women, gay, Latino, Jew, whatever). I only vote based on my assessment of the merits, but I do think that a substantial portion of the electorate will vote based on the excitement of being “the first.”
Regarding Walz, my guess is that Harris wanted to avoid having to deal with the challenges of having a Jewish running mate (She’s not herself antisemitic, but cynically doesn’t want to lose antisemitic voters, which would be the case with Shapiro.) Walz is not widely known, he’s affable, mid-western(ish), white, mature, and unambiguously male. He’s a low-risk running mate. We’ll see what happens as his history and policies as governor are dissected during the campaign.
There’s a report that she shut down pro-Hamas protestors heckling her at a Michigan rally. I don’t really know what her views are regarding Israel but I think she is savvy enough as a politician to recognize that siding with terrorists would be unwise. For me, it’s not even close. Another Trump term would be disastrous and Harris has my full support. There are no perfect candidates.
Regarding Michigan as a must-win state, Timothy Garton Ash’s substack blog pointed out not only are Arab-Americans a critical part of this electorate, but also that Ukrainian-Americans apparently comprise up to 0.5% of Michigan’s population. Presumably this group used to lean more Republican in the past. The shortfall in Democratic votes from Arab-Americans in this election could be reversed if the Ukrainian-American vote is mobilised and swings away from the Republicans.
Good point Ramesh. And the Ukrainians don’t’ want to burn down the west.
D.A.
NYC
While in the grocery store today I saw the hard-copy NY Times front page headline describing Walz as “Extraordinarily Ordinary.” Pearls of wisdom from the extraordinarily elite Times cognoscenti from atop Mt. Olympus.
On her most recent “Honestly” podcast, Bari Weiss omnisciently declared that Walz “looks like a high school teacher.” Pray tell, what does a high school teacher “look like,” as compared to, say, a snarky internet media entrepreneur? What if Walz otherwise had been a Nobelist university professor? Would Weiss have experienced cognitive dissonance?
In the last day or so NPR dutifully (fatuously) listed Walz’s weaknesses and strengths. (Facts or opinions?) One weakness alleged by NPR was his wearing a T-shirt and ballcap at public events. This preoccupation goes hand-in-glove with the Times’s fashion editor Vanessa Friedman’s analysis of Kamala Harris’s pre-presidential sartorial choices: “Instead she is wearing her usual tone-on-tone silk shells and pussy-bow blouses. Her usual signature pearls and 70-millimeter Manolo Blahnik heels. For the last four years, that was the perfect camouflage of the country’s No. 2 executive: somber, deferential, kind of dull. But does it look presidential?”
Serious policy stuff.
Norman, according to the article, she didn’t just indicate that she’d meet with them, but actually did. “Harris met with Abbas Alawieh and Layla Elabed, the Uncommitted National Movement’s co-founders”.
She told the group chanting about genocide in Gaza (the typical anti-Semitic talking point) to quiet down, not because she was against it, but because it could cost her votes. I wish she would have said something more like, “that is not a stance that I agree with”. Obviously though it doesn’t matter – she knows she won’t lose votes by being for Gaza, since team blue voters aren’t going to change their votes no matter what, but by standing with Jew-haters she might be able to win Michigan.
What an election. A party that is openly trying to court the anti-Semitic vote is the chosen party of half the country and hardly a peep from the media.
I didn’t know that. I’ll be watching to see if she gets better. Actually meeting with them isn’t a good start.
Agreed! If she doesn’t favor Hamas, she should have said so. She was just pulling a duplicitous stunt to get votes.
This business of “weird” is fatuity^3.
Per http://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/arts/tim-walz-trump-weird.html
” . . . as a matter of cultural prestige, weirdness overtook normality long ago.
” . . . there are good weirds and bad . . . . Weirdness, as a cultural marker, is a designation of irregularity that is increasingly self-declared and celebrated. To turn it back to an accusation, as Mr. Walz has done, is wondrous strange.”
No doubt, the NY Times is the ultimate arbiter of what is properly and acceptably celebrated as “weird” (notwithstanding its repeated appeals to “accepted norms” as they applied to Trump when the Times found it convenient to so appeal).
Let’s say Trump wins the presidency but the Dems keep the Senate and the GOP keeps a narrow majority in the House. I’m curious what terrible things people think will happen? Maybe gridlock is the best outcome for the next 4 years?
Interesting proposition, have been thinking about this outcome or something similar (in reverse).
This election season has already been so Weird® and is still more than four months away somany things can happen. What will AI in the hands of average people, I expect it will be very hard to tell what is real or not. Have already seen a couple that were good enough, using new approaches that I didn’t think possible. That’s without any the surge in new conspiracy theories on the attempted assassination alone. “Breaking news” doesn’t wait for an accuracy check.
If Tr*mp is president, you’ll have four more years of him stuffing the judiciary with right wing people in the pocket of the GOP and who have no respect for the law. If the Republican Party gains full control of the judiciary, that’s pretty much the end of democracy in the USA.
There is no democracy to “end” in America. The United States is not a democracy. It’s a Constitutional republic with a representative bicameral legislature and a separate executive organized to prevent the worst excesses of democracy, namely demagoguery and the risk that the mob. vulg. will vote itself the power to loot the Treasury and each other. It typically falls to the minority party to enact checks on the power of the majority to do whatever it wants, and part of this is the appointment of the judiciary when it’s its turn.
Foreigners should refrain from awfulizing about what an American election will or won’t produce. Most likely it will be same as always, only more so.
So when I was taught in school that the US is a democratic republic I was taught wrong? I checked the definition of democracy and numerous online dictionaries describe it similar to this: “government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.” According to Merriam-Webster, the US is both a democracy and a republic. In California every year, we have quite a few propositions to vote on with a simple majority required to pass. If that’s not democracy in action, I’m not sure what would be.
This article explains the point I am trying to make, particularly the constitutional protections against both dictatorship and the mob rule of pure majoritarian democracy.
https://www.thoughtco.com/republic-vs-democracy-4169936
Don’t federal judges need to win approval of the Senate? I am assuming the Senate stays in Dem control.
I want to emphasize that this article was in no way intended to be favorable to Trump, for whom I won’t vote and who, I think, is mentally ill in a way that will severely hurt the country. But that doesn’t mean I can’t say what I think about Harris. Unless she changes her tactics and policies before November, I can’t see voting for President at all. There is no third-party candidate I think is better. I could write in Gretchen Whitmer. . .
Thank you Dr. Coyne. I agree. I also think that whatever party and candidate we choose to vote for that we need to voice our disagreement with their policy when it goes against what we believe. I hope someone in the the Democratic party reads this blog and the comment section and can catch Harris’s ear to say “hey, those slightly older and well-educated traditional Democratic Party voters really would like to see you strongly support Israel’s right to exist.” Maybe someone will, maybe not. But if we all keep our mouths shut thinking we shouldn’t criticize the candidate, then they’ll certainly listen to opinion of those who advocate for Israel’s destruction, because that side is definitely not going to be quiet.
The people who’ve been telling Biden what to say should expect little trouble telling Harris what to say. That’s her virtue.
I’m not a one issue voter. The issues Harris & Walz support I find to be in my bailiwick. I’ll be happily voting for Harris & Walz in November.
Thank you again Dr. Coyne for your “blog” and all you provide for us – it’s been greatly appreciated over the years. I’ve learned so much about evolutionary biology. Indeed Evolution is True and indeed it answers so much about reality.
Enjoy South Africa.
I’m voting for Chase Oliver, who would be the first openly gay man to serve as president. Does that make me more woke than the NYT?
I just listened to Nick Gillespie interview him on the Reason Interview podcast. I can’t say that I agree with all Oliver says, but I agree with much of his platform, especially on the economy, government spending, free market, and personal freedom. He’s intriguing. I wish our system allowed for more of the third and fourth party candidates to be heard in an open marketplace of ideas.
I don’t consider myself woke at all, but I also don’t consider someone’s preference of their sexual habits with other adults to be a reason to either vote or not vote for them.
I was, in fact, part of a public discussion about “open primaries”/”ranked voting” this morning… I’m still uncertain of the correct term used to describe such an opening of the process. I’m still very much in the learning/researching phase about this, but am very interested in it. My wish is for some reform that will act to moderate the extreme polarization that’s occurred in the US. Here in Arizona there is a an attempt to get a proposition on our state ballot to create such a system. It seems it will be thrown out as many dug in groups are fighting it. It’s poorly worded and probably doesn’t stand a chance. Each “side” retreating to their respective corners is not helping our country as a whole, though. I see this mess beginning in the form of a backlash against Obama and it’s intensifying with every election. It’s going to take a lot of work, creativity and some courage to unwind, in my opinion.
By picking Walz though, the GOP will have to put some actual effort into painting him as a “dangerously liberal extremist”. But there is now a clear difference between the VP picks. Trump did consider the ‘take the puppy to the gravel pit and shoot it’ woman vs yet another leftist soft on crime and forgives multiple offenses.
https://www.today.com/pets/minnesota-governor-dog-locked-bedroom-rcna122484?fbclid=IwY2xjawEh5zFleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHcchW-BxZS_mBnd-v2uX7hq_C0KRXYsbPM26wSZHsbV59nPd2bmcg9Hjow_aem_I_6Me5Ec-jizM7iFaEIpyw
“All warfare is based primarily on
deception of an enemy. Fighting on a
battlefield is the most primitive way of
making war. There is no art higher
than to destroy your enemy without a
fight by subverting anything of value in enemy’s country.”
Sun-Tzu
Chinese philosopher
500 B.C.
As quoted in Love Letter to America by Thomas D. Schuman – alias of Yuri Bezmenov.
Countdown until Pamela Paul jumps ship and joins Bari Weiss at The Free Press. 🙂
+1
I have pondered that, but I suspect the NYT will keep her on as a heterodox writer–they have to have at least one (and now two with McWhorter) to keep any credibility.
Kamala is being blamed for “not doing a great job on the border crises”…but what exactly could she do in her capacity as VP? What actual executive power did she have to effect any change?
I’m not trying to defend her necessarily, just asking for specifics as to where she fell down on this task.
As VP she has no actual responsibility for anything, except to preside in the Senate and break ties. The Dept. of Homeland Security reports to the President, not to her. To insert her in the chain of command, if it was even legal, would cause the Secretary in charge to resign. What she was tasked with was to visit countries whose citizens were showing up at the border and convince them to keep their people home….somehow.
The charitable way to look at this was as a fool’s errand that kept her out of DC. The cynical view is that the President wanted to make his replacement, should he be impeached, fail on a high-profile issue and publicly discredit herself by appearing incompetent. It would also undermine her effectiveness as his rival for his re-election should he be challenged.
The vice-president isn’t meant to accomplish anything, especially in a first term because this makes her a danger to her boss if she shows him up.
I think the issue is that Biden appointed her lead on this and she did very little. It raises the question of whether this was a serious appointment and whether the Biden Administration intended to “deal” with the situation at all. The fact that the Harris supporters are so strenuously denying her role (and being supported by the MSM) is just an insult to everyone’s intelligence.
Biden did not appoint her to lead on “this” — he appointed her to investigate the sources of out-migration in three Latin American countries.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kamala-harris-immigration-biden-administration-border/
I have never been a hard headed pragmatic cynic when voting. I have my own principles and ethics and am not swayed by anything but a candidate’s record and positions. However, the defeat of Trump requires a compromise, not high falutin
idealism. The choice of Walz was brilliant: a liberal midwesterner where all the right boxes are checked and no baggage. Harris? government experience and toughness, certainly no worse than some past Democratic candidates I can think of. We are in a national crisis and our ideals aren’t going to win the day. Face it, hold your nose, but get out there and support Harris/Walz as if your life depended on it (some think its does). No time for dreams.
+1
Sorry, but I reject your classification of my vote as “high falutin idealism”. If I were in a swing state, I would vote for Harris for pragmatic reasons, but in Illinois pragmatism isn’t necessary, and I don’t want to compromise my principles. For the first time in my life, I may note vote for President, though of course I will be backing other Democratic candidates.
Your comment comes off as if you’re better than the rest of us who have been agonizing about this election.
Concerning Harris’s stand on the middle east – she like many Americans just want peace, for humanitarian reasons. I expect Israel will do whatever they decide to do, with or without US support, and the US under either party will continue to provide weaponry.
The other big foreign policy issue is Ukraine, and Harris will continue the Biden administration’s unconditional support. Trump would happily side with Putin and effectively surrender Ukraine to him. This issue alone will guarantee my vote for Harris.
That Harris was ineffective on the border does reflect poorly on her, but the executive branch can’t solve that problem alone. They almost had a bipartisan legislative solution, until Trump derailed it.
Politics is all about compromise, and Harris is a compromise candidate – she was in the right place at the right time, and it would have been difficult for the Democrats to replace her this late in the game.
There’s a lot more at stake here than who is president. For a normal candidate (not Trump), the president brings in a legion of competent, experienced political allies, and appoints judges. These appointees will have a huge effect on governance. Consider that roughly half of Trump’s appointees do not support his candidacy – and that many are vehemently opposed.
The presidential veto will be very important if Republicans take the Senate and keep the House. Trump’s supporters have prepared a plan for governance, Project 2025, which will roll back federal regulations, restructure and/or eliminate certain federal agencies. Do you trust them to to make good decisions? I certainly do not.
I will unhesitatingly cast all my votes for Democrats this year.
Reading all these comments of people who won’t vote for Harris because she is not perfect in their eyes, and don’t seem to mind if Trump wins, I can only say what I occasionally sarcastically tell my Trump-loving best friend [Yes, he is Trump-loving; and yes, he is my best friend]: “I for one welcome our new fascist overlords.”
Well, that’s about as rude a comment as I can imagine. I will not vote for Trump or welcome him as a fascist overlord. And yes, of course I would mind if Trump wins, and if my non-vote would help him win, I would vote. So you simply misconstrue what I said
Including PCC(E) in the list of people who welcome fascists, along with many others who have doubts about Harris but won’t vote for Trump, is both both badly wrong and a Roolz violation. You can either apologize to all of us for calling us people who crave fascism, or you can go comment on other websites.
Jerry, I think the operative word in that comment was “sarcastically”!
While we are bringing in other contentious issues such as detransitioners, let me draw everyone’s attention to a curious take on MAID in the National Post. The author posits that health-care serial killers might be drawn to the field for their own reasons. This is an archive, so should be readable to all:
https://archive.is/VYKv0
I’m late to the thread, but for those Harris supporters still hanging around: are any of you troubled by her lack of engagement with the press? To take questions without them being staged? To respond extemporaneously without her staff notes near?
I was never a big fan of Hillary Clinton, but there was much about her that I respected. Can you imagine Hillary being afraid of questions? Or consistently refusing to engage, even with an adversarial questioner?
There is a sharp difference or two between these two women that might explain the above. Hint: it’s not race, ethnicity, or “smart” politics.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/business/media/kamala-harris-press-interviews.html